Abstract:A cross sectional study was carried out to investigate the effects of socio-economic, demographic and internet exposure factors on school performance among 10 grade students of Nilkhet High School. All of the eighty seven students were selected for this study. In this study school performance was measured by class roll number. The lower the class roll number the better the school performance. During Chisquare test grade (A+, A, A-, B, C, D) achieved in the class 9 final examination was taken as dependent variable. An upper grade indicates better school performance than lower grade. Class roll number were highly negatively correlated with the factors-actual income of the family, actual monthly tuition cost, number of rooms in the house, number of earning persons in the family, and this correlation was significant (p<0.01) at 1% level of significance. Chi-square test was used to check for association between the category of these factors and the school performance measured by grade. Chi-square test also found highly significant. In Chi-square test some of the other factors namely highest education of mothers (p<0.05), highest education of fathers (p<0.05), occupation of fathers (p<0.01), and occupation of mothers (p<0.05) were significant. Maximum 80.7% change in school performance was found when we studied the aggregate effects of fourteen factors. The school performance measured by grade of the students was significantly related with the work on internet and number of friends in Facebook because the Chi-square test shows the P-value<0.01. Maximum 43.5 % changes occurred in school performance when number of friends in Facebook was significant at 1% level of significance and both work on internet and Facebook account were significant at 10% level of significance.

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Aims: Milk works as an excellent medium for bacterial growth and can turn into a fatal source of food borne diseases when consumed without pasteurization. This study was carried out to examine the microbiological quality of milk from three different points of milk supply chain to investigate whether the dairy stakeholders are maintaining the consumer safety or not. Study Design: A cross sectional study Place and Duration: The study took place at the Food Microbiology lab of Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Dhaka from November 2019 to February 2020. Methodology: A total of 60 samples were studied including raw milk from collection centers, unpackaged pasteurized milk from processing plants and packaged pasteurized milks from retail shops. After carrying out the microbiological analysis the samples were examined for determining the total bacterial count (TBC) and total coliform count (TCC). Antibiotic susceptibility test was done using disk diffusion assay and detection of virulent gene in Salmonella spp. was done by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) using specific invA primer. Results: The results revealed that all raw milk samples were substandard in terms of TBC and TCC and pasteurized milks from processing plants maintained the standard quality. Importantly, packaged pasteurized milk samples from retail shops had high TBC (>4.0× 104 CFU/mL) and TCC (1.2×103 CFU/mL) containing Pseudomonas, Micrococcus, Streptococcus, Salmonella, Proteus, Staphylococcus, Bacillus and E. coli. Bacteria like Salmonella (75%), Proteus (62.5%) and Vibrio (62.5%) possessed high Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) index and showed resistance towards antibiotics namely Ampicillin, Amoxicillin, Erythromycin and Colistin. Through further molecular analysis we detected invA virulent gene one of the Salmonella isolates which was collected from the pasteurized milk samples of the retail shops. Conclusion: High bacterial load in raw milk and packaged pasteurized milk indicate that the milk we consume is substandard in microbiological quality. Precautionary measurements and careful processing of milk may reduce the prevalence of microbiological contamination in the milk supply chain.

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Burden, due to foodborne diseases, particularly Salmonella infection, is high in developing countries like Bangladesh. This research aimed at the molecular characterization of Salmonella spp., isolated from selected school canteen’s fast foods in Dhaka city, Bangladesh, and to evaluate the antibiotic resistance patterns of isolated foodborne pathogens. The school cafeterias were selected by the convenience sampling method. The samples were collected aseptically, and serial dilutions were made. The bacterial colonies were isolated by spread plate technique using appropriate media, and bacterial identification was carried out using gram staining and biochemical tests such as MIU, KIA, Oxidase, and Catalase test. The strain of Salmonella spp. was confirmed by molecular characterization employing the 16S rRNA gene sequencing method. The susceptibility of the isolates to various antibiotics was observed by modified Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Most of the samples were found to contain an unacceptable level of a total aerobic count, which ranged from 5.6×105 to 6.1×107 and 3.4×104 to 7.2×107 for burger and sandwich samples, respectively. Significant isolates from the pathogenic strains were Salmonella spp., Shigella, Klebsiella, Proteus, E. coli, Vibrio spp., Clostridium spp., Staphylococcus spp., and others. The further molecular characterization of isolated Salmonella spp. suggests the similarity with Salmonella enterica serovar Rissen SeqrSC0091. Most isolates were resistant against Ampicillin (100%), Azithromycin (60.87%), Tetracycline (39.43%), Colistin (32.61%), while were highly sensitive to Gentamycin and Chloramphenicol. The presence of multidrug-resistant foodborne pathogens at this high level in the school cafeteria’s fast foods signifies an increased risk for the children’s health.